Two very real possibilities

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"If Tom Dunne hadn't had the courage and acuity to publish that "unpublishable" book, I would probably have gone back to mathematics and wound up drearily teaching."--Joe Haldeman.{the quote is from the introduction to The Forever War}

'In 1842 Alan Pinkerton boarded a ship in Scotland and sailed away from the closing hand of justice. An avowed Chartist [...]. If Pinkerton had stayed much longer in Glasgow, it is possible that one of America's most influential crime fighters would have been only another unremembered Scottish convict.'{this is from History the History Channel Magazine for March/April 2010}